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Outdoor Journal: Time for a hunter conservation group?

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With the white-tailed deer season in full swing, hunters hugging desks instead of their rifles might want to click on a few links to peer into the crystal ball of hunting –; and the future doesn’t look too bright.

It’s not a question of game –; it’s a question of hunters, or the lack thereof.

Hunters’ conservation programs have worked wonders to increase game numbers. But hunters haven’t been growing their own.

It shows how such conservation organizations as Ducks Unlimited have helped habitat and conservation and therefore grown the numbers of wildlife.

But, even though humans are hardwired for the chase and have been for thousands of years, in today’s urban world, there just aren’t enough hunters.

As urban and suburban sprawl eats up habitat, old hunters die off and not enough younger hunters take their place.

Is the answer a conservation group for hunters?

No one has come up with the perfect solution, but Texans seem to be holding their own.

The number of hunters in Texas has been around 1 million for the last 15 years, but that really is a decrease, proportionally, as the state’s population continues to grow, Harvey pointed out.

“This is a concern for several reasons,” he wrote. “Hunting is important as a source of family recreation that bonds parents and kids in solitude in ways you don’t find at the mall or movie theater or even the soccer field.

“Most Texans now live in cities, where meat comes from supermarkets and animals live in zoos, and hunting is a way to reconnect with the real world of natural processes.”

TP&W and such organizations as the Texas Wildlife Association promote ways to get youth involved in hunting to grow the next generation.

Check the link below, which goes to a couple dozen stories and surveys on Texas hunting.